Always With You
by Shockwave Syndrome
Summary: When you belong with someone, your soul calls out for them across time, across space, and across life itself. Jack and Kate could live a hundred different lives and still always find each other again.
1. PASCHENDAELE, 1917

**PASCHENDAELE, 1917**

The cigarette smoke felt good in her lungs as she inhaled it. The dense grey cloud that swept down her throat blocked out everything around her – the dampness of the air, the sounds of pain and despair, and the metallic tang of blood in her mouth.

All around her, people ran, yelling and shouting for help, passing around bleeding men on carts. She had been helping one of them not too long ago. He hadn't made it.

Everyone was dying, but all she really needed was a smoke. That was how she could pretend it wasn't happening. This was just another problem that she could run away from.

Not that she was a stranger to dying men. Tom, her boyfriend, her fiancée, her friend since childhood – he was gone too, just because she wasn't able to let go. Just because she had to keep running away.

Kate took another drag of the cigarette. She had no idea how she'd ended up here, surrounded by death. Maybe it was because she felt like the soldiers were running too. Everyone who went to war was running from something.

She didn't feel alone anymore. Not when she was surrounded by hundreds of people just as fucked up as she was.

Or maybe it was because this was the only way she could get out of jail time. Yeah, I used to sew drapes. Can you sew people? Sure. So instead of being placed in a cell, she was placed in a camp worse than anything imaginable.

An explosion rocked the ground near them. Thrown off balance, she fell into the canvas of the tent and nearly ripped through it. But the tent was strong and it held. Kate took another calming inhale of smoke.

A nurse came running out of the tent, her eyes wide and frantic. Nurse Austin! Kate couldn't hear her, but she could see her lips moving. The sound of the explosion echoed in her ears.

We need your help! Kate read that simply enough. She tossed down her cigarette and crushed it under her heel. The other nurses had berated her – smoking wasn't ladylike. But war wasn't ladylike either.

She followed the other nurse into the tent. What is it, Juliet? She couldn't even hear her own words as she said them.

Slowly, her sound came back. "There's a man over there who needs you to sew him up," said Juliet frantically. Kate didn't know her last name. She didn't care.

She nodded and straightened her white hat before rushing to the supplies tray. There were needles and thread. Sewing people was a lot different than sewing drapes, but she had adjusted. Now they relied on her quick skill for the sewing cases while they saved men from more drastic injuries.

When she thought about it, she wasn't very useful. But the court didn't need to know that.

The man with the wound in his side was lying on a stretcher, grunting in pain. He looked up when he saw her. Kate nearly dropped her needle.

He looked familiar, with trusting brown eyes and short-cut brown hair. There was hair on his chest, but that hardly mattered when she noticed the blood dripping down his side. The whole scenario felt vaguely familiar, but she brushed it off.

"Hold still," she instructed him. "It won't work if you don't."

He chuckled and laid his head back on the stretcher.

"What's so funny?" she asked him curiously, attaching the thread to the needle and preparing to press it through his skin.

"I'm a doctor," he told her. "I've had to stitch up more people than I can count. I just feel so powerless not being able to help myself."

Even though he was making a joke, there was something about him that told Kate that this man didn't like to be powerless. At all. She pierced his skin with the needle and felt him flinch.

"I said to hold still," she reminded him as she began to stitch him up. "So if you're a doctor, why are you fighting?"

"My dad's a doctor too," he wheezed, as if that explained everything. "I guess I just wanted to do something to make him proud of me. Like fight for our country. Fight for Canada."

Kate looked up and met his gaze. His eyes searched hers solemnly. Was he running away from his old life too? She shrugged. It wasn't any of her business. "Okay."

"I want to prove myself," continued the soldier, forcing out another half-laugh. Kate didn't respond; she just concentrated on finishing her sewing.

"Why are you in the army?" he asked. Kate, finishing the suture, looked up at him and frowned.

"Does it matter to you?" she asked guardedly, stepping back a little from him.

"Everyone has a story, Kate," he said softly, gazing so deeply into her eyes that she felt forced to take a step back. Her heart was racing. Who was this soldier?

"How do you know my name?" she whispered.

The doctor frowned. "It's on your name tag. But if you want to be fair, I'm Jack. Jack Shephard."

"What do you believe in, Jack?" Kate asked, perching herself on the stretcher beside him. It wasn't like Juliet was calling her back to stitch up someone else. "If everyone has a story, why are we all here? Is there a reason for it?"

His eyes grew dark and he looked away. "There's no such thing as a bigger reason or destiny, Kate. We're all here since we chose to be."

"Maybe some of us didn't really get a choice," she said, recalling her own: jail or nurse duty. "Maybe some of us are just trying to run away."

Jack chuckled again. "This is a bad place to run away too," he commented.

Kate was about to agree when Juliet walked over to them. "I have another one here for you, Nurse Austin," she said. "If he's good, you can send him back to the trenches."

"Sure. One moment," said Kate. Juliet nodded and walked off to go help someone else. They probably didn't even have a chance.

"You good to go?" she asked Jack. He nodded and sat up. Though the soldier grunted in pain, he seemed fine and ready to go back to the war.

As he was getting up and about to leave, Kate grabbed his arm. She tingled at the contact and as she turned to him, he looked as though he'd been electrified.

"Will I ever see you again?" she asked, not sure why she cared. Maybe it was just good to find someone else who understood how the world worked.

Jack shook his head. "We're just two people," he whispered in a low voice. "But I wish we were more."

Kate let go of his arm and watched him walk away, head held him. She grabbed her needles and went to stitch the next soldier up.

Her fingers itched for the comforting texture of a cigarette.


	2. BRITAIN, 1842

**BRITAIN, 1842**

The carriage ride was rough and the road full of holes, but the scenery was beautiful. The green countryside went rolling past as the horse-drawn carriage sped along the musty dirt road.

"Sorry to have pulled both of you from your estate, Lord and Lady Shephard." A portly but well-dressed man was sitting at one end of the carriage, his elbows on his large knees as he scrutinized them. His accent was thick and British.

Lord Doctor Shephard, a well-dressed man with thick dark brown hair and eyes that seemed to be fixed in a permanent squint, nodded in acknowledgement. His hand found that of his wife, and he squeezed it reassuringly.

"This was supposed to be our vacation," said Lady Shephard haughtily, clearly not as forgiving as her husband was. She turned and met his gaze with her own as if to convey her displeasure.

He gave her an encouraging smile before turning back to look out the window, still squeezing her hand as if to convey all of his love and affection for her. Rich, well-known, and loved. That was what he was.

His wife, perhaps the most precious thing on the planet to him, was a well-dressed and well-respected young woman with medium-length blond hair and a haughty air to her. He, however, knew how to get past it.

There were times when he was unsure if she just put on the act, or if she really did consider herself better than everyone. The doubt was unsettling and so he pushed it out of his mind before it could gnaw away at him.

"Jack." He heard her voice in his ear and so he turned away from the window and back to the hostility in the carriage.

"We'll still have our vacation later," he reassured his wife. "Don't worry, Sarah. I'm sure they won't have us away too long. How sick did you say Lord Widmoore was?"

To his wife's frustration, he tore his gaze away from her and focused his attention on Benjamin Linus, who was their official escort too and from the Widmoore estate. There was something about his face that Jack didn't trust, but he supposed it must be hard living in Lord Widmoore's shadow all the time.

"Not too sick, I hope," replied Linus. "He's just worried that it might get much worse."

Jack nodded and tightened his grip on Sarah's hand. This was supposed to be their month to get away from the hassle of being the official doctor to Lord Widmoore himself, charity benefactor and Member of Parliament.

"Perhaps Lord Widmoore would be so kind as to have another portrait drawn up of Doctor Shephard," said Sarah icily, staring down their escort.

Jack gave a half-chuckle. "I'm fine, really," he assured Linus. "I don't need another portrait. You'll have to excuse my wife."

He felt Sarah tense beside him, as if she couldn't believe he had just said that. "You'll have to excuse my husband, Mr. Linus. He isn't usually so abrupt or patronizing to me."

"Dr. Linus," murmured brown-haired man so softly that Jack had to strain to hear him. "I have a doctorate."

If Sarah heard, she took no notice. She shrugged and went back to staring at Jack, affronted.

When they made it to the estate, Jack was ushered in to see Lord Widmoore. After establishing the fact that the old Lord was, in fact, fine and just a mild fever that would sweat out easily enough, he retired back to the billiards room to find Sarah sitting at the piano, playing just as her tutors had showed her.

She didn't see him coming in, and so Jack just watched her. He loved his wife – at least, he hoped he did – but there was something rather artificial about her. Did she like piano, or did she just play it to be a lady?

"Want to go for a walk?" he asked. Startled, Sarah turned towards him. Her dour face brightened at the sight of her husband.

They had just walked through the grounds and were about to head into the woods when Sarah complained about her aching feet. Jack planted a gentle kiss on her lips and told her to go back and rest. He, on the other hand, was going to walk through the woods.

He hadn't gone very far when a deer pelted across the path. As if following the animal, the arrow flew through the air and embedded itself in a tree by the doctor's head. Jack froze and slowly turned.

There was a girl standing there. She was probably only a few years younger than him, but she was slight and her eyes were frail. She held a bow in her left hand and her eyes were wide with fear.

Then she ran. Jack lunged after her, for some reason unable to let the girl go. He caught her arm and tried to pull her back on to the path, but she tumbled and they both fell into a patch of bracken.

She was lying on top of him with their noses touching, and Jack felt his heart beat faster. He grabbed her wrists and she gave up struggling after a moment. "Let me up," she said softly.

Jack lifted them both up, a little disappointed when her body was no longer pressed against hers. He kept his grasp on her wrists.

"You're poaching," he stated with a steel glare.

She swallowed and then nodded. "If you hadn't come along, I would have caught that deer," she said, eyes flashing with defiance.

Jack was impressed by her attitude. "How old are you, anyways?" he asked, not letting go even though the urge to brush down his suit was overpowering.

She glared at him. "Twenty-six."

Not that much younger than him then. "You know poaching is illegal," he told her, not sure whether or not to be angry. "Have you even caught anything?"

The girl hesitated. "Some deer. It's not that hard. I learned to track when I was young. I know it's illegal. Some of us need to do it."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "Some of us need to do it? What does that mean?"

"Some of us aren't as perfect as you are," she snapped, tightening her grip on her bow until Jack thought it might snap. "Some of us aren't as rich or as _good_."

She twisted to escape, but Jack grabbed on to her, pulling her body against his as his hands held her back. She pounded once – twice – on his chest before letting herself go limp and wiping her face void of emotion.

"I work hard at what I do," he said darkly.

"You were born into a successful family," she replied. "That's why you're so successful. I'm good at what I do, to. But you don't see me wearing a fancy dress with my nose upturned."

Jack thought of Sarah. She was like that, wasn't she? Born into a rich family, never knowing anything but luxury. He winced. "Do you really need to poach to eat?" he asked gently.

The girl paused for a moment. Her eyes softened and then she nodded, her brown curls bouncing as she did so. "Please don't tell anyone."

"Don't worry," Jack said, moving in closer to her as if compelled by some inexplicable force. "I won't."

She looked up at him, green eyes meeting brown. "What's your name?" she asked, as if his very presence took her breath away.

There was something magnetic about her that Jack kept trying to shake. "Jack. Jack Shephard."

"Kate Austen," she said, and Jack felt a rush of happiness flow through him that she trusted him enough to give him her information.

Her hands were on his cheeks and suddenly Jack felt as though everything was right. There was something undeniably familiar about her. He wanted to pull her against his chest and kiss her right there and then.

But she was a commoner, and he had a wife. More than that, he had a duty. He was sworn to be Lord Widmoore's doctor. That took precedence over everything else.

"This isn't what I'm supposed to do," he whispered before letting her go. Hurt and confusion whipped through her eyes as Jack turned away.

With every step, he felt as though something was dragging him down. He was leaving behind a part of him – something that he couldn't explain, not in a hundred years.

But he had a duty above all else.

So, ignoring the pain in his chest, Jack returned to Sarah and held her hand on the carriage ride back, even though now it felt clammy and fake when pressed into his own.


	3. CHICAGO, 1996

**CHICAGO, 1996**

Her piano was all she had and she didn't even know how to play it. Sometimes she would sit by it, letting her fingers trail soundlessly across the keys as she wondered what it would be like to make beautiful music.

It was the last thing she had received from her father before he had died fighting in Vietnam. Now it was the late 1990s and she had nowhere to go. Nowhere to live. So she had rented a tiny apartment downtown in the Windy City, barely able to pay the rent each month.

She had a job, if it could even be considered that. Bagging groceries wasn't a way to live. Sometimes she had thought about resorting to robbing banks, just to give herself some money. But there was still some sense of morality in her. She couldn't do that.

The piano wasn't even inside. It didn't fit in her apartment. So, with her landlord's permission, she left it chained up and heavily locked outside. It was risky, but he had promised her that he would keep a close eye on it.

After her father had died in the war, her mother had told her the truth: that man hadn't been her father. Her father was some drunkard she had only met a few times. She could remember him touching her, hitting on her, yelling at her mother – the _bruises_ on her mother's face.

The bruises on her own face.

Coming home from work late one night, Kate was almost at her apartment when she paused. A beautiful sound was coming down from the entrance. She immediately thought of her piano and how she wished she could make such beautiful music.

As she took a few steps closer, she realized with a shock of intermingled anger and joy that it was her piano. There was a dark figure hunched over it.

Suddenly feeling violated, as if the piano was a private part of her that she didn't want anyone to touch, Kate took a step forward. Her heart was thudding against her ribs. She didn't want him to touch it, but she didn't want him to stop – she hadn't heard such beautiful music since before her father – the one she had loved, not the one she had been born of – had died.

"That's mine," she managed to whisper in a hoarse voice. The stranger looked up, obviously startled.

He was very rough-looking, with a dense beard and a band-aid over his forehead. His brown eyes were rimmed with red, but his face had something almost amiable too it.

Then he proceeded to apologize profusely for playing her piano. The man sighed and ran a hand through his thick hair. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I don't usually play other people's pianos."

Kate immediately felt sorry for him. She knew what it was like to wander around, lost and alone, angry at nothing yet everything, and feeling so incredibly empty inside.

"Want to come in for a drink?" she offered.

His eyes lit up but he stopped himself just in time, swallowing hard and looking down at his hands, which were in his lap. "I shouldn't."

Her voice was surprisingly soft as she offered him her hand. "Then just come in. We can just talk."

Looking at her in surprise, the man stood up and clasped her hand. His handshake was firm and Kate's palm tingled at the contact. She swallowed and pushed the strange reaction away. "I'd like that," he whispered.

They walked up the steps hand in hand, though Kate disentangled herself in order to buzz them in to the apartment building. She led him up the stairs and into her small apartment, where he settled himself on the couch.

"Kate," she told him, leaning against her small bookshelf. There wasn't much on it. A few books on philosophy. An erotic novel. A scrapbook. A photo of the man she had called her father.

"Jack," he said with a smile, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. He looked unsettled, sitting on a stranger's navy blue couch.

"So…" she trailed off, unsure of what to say. There was just something about his presence there that drew her to him and made her want to keep him there as long as she could.

"Nice piano," Jack told her amiably, a smile playing on his lips. Kate blushed despite herself and ran a hand through her tangled brown hair.

"It was my father's," she told him for lack of a better explanation. Half of her wanted to open up to him and let the words tumble out, but the other half reminded her that he was just a strange man in her apartment.

"I wanted to give mine to my son…" It was Jack's turn to trail off. His eyes grew distant and hard.

"What happened?" Kate couldn't help herself. It was as if there was some force within her that was pulling her towards him, yet repelling her just at the crucial moment.

Jack shrugged. "He was never born. My wife and I divorced. I was temporarily discharged from work for alcoholism."

Any words she had hoped to say tumbled right off her lips. Who was he, anyways? Why had she invited him up to her room? There was absolutely no good reason for it. Her fingers itched to call the police on him.

Then his eyes twinkled. "I still play the piano though. I was actually practicing for my concert – do you want to hear?"

Kate was confused. "Do I want to hear you play? I already have though, I found you on my piano – your music was beautiful, though."

He shook his head. "My concert. I have an extra ticket if you'd like to come."

Hesitantly she began to move towards him as he pulled a ticket out from his pocket. "Why do you have an extra one?" she asked with a frown.

Jack almost winced but he kept his composure as he handed her the ticket. His expression remained neutral. "It was for someone else. It didn't work out."

She wordlessly took the ticket, feeling it crinkle underneath her callused fingers. "The information and everything is on the ticket," said Jack. His eyes were hopeful. "Will you come?"

Kate nodded breathlessly. "I'd love to," she said. If she couldn't make beautiful music, there was no reason she couldn't listen to someone else play, especially if they touched her soul like this man did.

Jack smiled and stood up. "Well, I need to go," he said abruptly. Kate's smile vanished and she forced herself to nod.

"I'll see you there," he said as he paused by the door. He looked indecisive, just as inexplicably anxious as she was.

"Jack." Her voice stopped him as he entered the hall, and the bearded man slowly turned around.

"Will you teach me how to play?" she asked quietly. For a moment she wondered if he had even heard her, and then he broke out into a larger grin. His eyes spoke to her, reaching down inside of her and stirring her soul.

"If you'll have me."

"Always," she replied, but he was gone.


	4. BRISBANE, 1974

**BRISBANE, 1974**

His sister was pregnant. No, scratch that. His half-sister – who he had _never even met_ before a week ago – was pregnant. So his father was a cheater and his mother was just some woman who had long ago given up on happiness.

But his father had decided to pay to bring him and his son down to Australia so that they could be with Claire as she gave birth. Jack's father insisted it was a way to support Claire, whose boyfriend had left her, but Jack knew better. It was just a way to avoid what was going on in the United States.

Namely Nixon and Jack's mother.

She had reacted well to news that her husband had cheated on her. Christian Shephard was a complicated man. He wasn't a man who could be tamed easily or taught. His son carried some of those characteristics.

Jack Shephard was only seventeen and he was trying to live up to everything his father had placed on his shoulders. Grades. Medical School. But beyond that, he wanted to be what his father had never been capable of.

He wanted to be the hero.

"Want to go get a wrap for lunch with me?" asked his father as he drove them down towards the hospital. Claire had been feeling contractions for awhile now, and they had decided it was best to place her in the hospital directly.

Jack shook his head. His father was the last man he wanted to be with now. "No. I have money – I'll get something from the hospital cafeteria."

"Will you come in and sit with Claire and I?" prompted his father hopefully, not taking his eyes off the road.

The teenager sighed and stared out the window. It wasn't that he didn't like Claire – she was nice enough and extremely amiable – but they didn't have anything to talk about. So he shook his head. "I'll be fine."

When they got to the hospital, the first thing that Jack did was head straight to the vending machine – so much for a healthy wrap. He devoured his Apollo chocolate bar easily, tossing the wrapper lazily in the trash when he was finished.

He spent the next fifteen minutes wandering the hospital, daydreaming and being berated by tired nurses. Hospitals were the one place he could relax. People were healing here. There were doctors, champions of the weak and needy.

That's what he wanted to be. A champion.

Jack felt his feet leading him. As he turned down a corridor, he stopped by a room with the blinds open but the lights dimmed. Despite himself, he looked inside.

An old woman was lying propped up against a pillow, obviously tired. Her curly brown hair was tangled and her face was sunken.

He tried to look away but she had seen him. Her eyes widened, and for some inexplicable reason, Jack felt drawn towards her. He took a hesitant step, and when she beckoned him closer, her walked into her room.

As he drew closer to her bed, Jack realized the absurdity of it all. They didn't know each other. For all he knew, she thought he was her long-lost husband. He considered leaving, but the weariness in this woman's eyes made him stay.

"How old are you?" he asked, forgetting how to say anything else. The words felt dry and forced on his tongue. Jack had a desperate need to talk to her, but he didn't know how to fulfill it.

"Eighty-five," she whispered, and smiled. To Jack, her smile looked as beautiful as it must have when she had been his age.

He sat down in the chair beside her. The old woman moved her hand out of the bedcovers and Jack grasped it instinctively, unprepared for the shock that ran through him.

Images flitted at the back of his memory, but he just couldn't grasp them. His heart was pounding fast as a sense of belonging filtered through him.

Jack didn't know what he was feeling. He was seventeen and had already experienced sexual desire many times already. He could deal with that. He was in charge of that feeling. This was nothing like it. This was just a feeling of _wholeness_.

"I don't even know you," he said bluntly, though he refused to let go of her hand. He was comforting a sick and elderly woman. There was nothing wrong with that.

Her eyes, while sunken into her face, met his gaze with a startling intensity. "Do you believe in other lives?" she asked.

Jack frowned and shook his head. "Stuff like that can't happen. So no, I don't," he asserted, though their strange connection was making him start to wonder.

A smile twitched at the corner of her lips. "Neither do I," she murmured, squeezing his hand. Her skin was leathery and cool, but her forehead looked warm.

"Why are you in here?" Jack asked, before shutting his mouth and wishing he could take his words back. He couldn't just ask something like that.

Thankfully, she didn't seem to care. "I have cancer," she said, closing her eyes peacefully. "Truthfully, I don't mind."

Jack looked at her curiously. "How can you not mind? It's your life. When it's over, it's over. There's no coming back."

"Because I'm alone," sighed the old woman. "Everyone I loved is gone. I lived my life and now it's over."

He wanted to tell her that she wasn't alone, but he knew she was. He was seventeen and she was eighty-five. He couldn't support her. He couldn't be anything to her. There was just something about the situation that was so… _unjust_.

Jack picked up something from the table placed beside her hospital bed – a small toy plane. He looked up at the woman with a curious expression.

Her eyes misted up but she didn't seem to mind him touching it. "It belonged to the man I loved," she whispered. "He's gone too."

A rush of jealousy coursed through Jack. It wasn't that he wanted to be her lover – that was impossible. It was that someone else could complete her life they way her hand was completing his. It was supposed to him that made her feel whole. _Him._

No, this was crazy. He had just met this woman. But the way she made his heart pound and the way she drew him to her was simply amazing.

He didn't love her. He didn't want to be hers for life. He just wanted to sit there with this stranger that he felt such a compulsive connection to.

Her breathing became short and laboured, and his grip on her hand continued to tighten.

"Don't go," he said. His lips were moving but his words were barely audible, his voice numb.

She smiled weakly at him. "Thank you... I waited all this time and you finally came," she whispered before closing her eyes and letting her head fall back against the pillow.

Jack wanted to scream at the injustice of this. She was dying alone – and she didn't even care. She wasn't fighting for her life. She was letting it go. People couldn't be like this. They couldn't.

Her hand became cold and stiff underneath his as her breathing stopped. Jack didn't look up. He kept his grip, his chest heaving forcefully. Every breath was pained. This couldn't be happening. She couldn't have given up like this.

Jack Shephard, defender of justice and champion of the weak, bowed his head and cried.


	5. NEWARK, 1933

**NEWARK, 1933**

She stared unflinchingly at the battered photograph in her hands. The date on the back was a constant reminder that everything she had ever considered real was fake. Her hands, which had used to tremble so much, were stiff and clammy. She felt lifeless. She probably was lifeless.

Almost. She had a job – if it could even be called that. It was work. It was heartless, selfish work, but it got her by. She had had to earn her place and earn her work. She had worked so hard at what she did that the guilt that had used to threaten to flood her had receded. Faded away almost completely.

"Kate, are you ready?" The voice was familiar and she processed it without much thought, nodding numbly. Her eyes were still trained on the photograph, but she looked at it sightlessly.

The date scrawled on the back couldn't be real. _December, 1901_. When she had been conceived. Her father, away. But it was real. It was so real that she felt like cracking down and breaking into a million pieces – but no one would take any notice.

She felt hands trailing down her back, slipping a gun into her pants. The cold metal made her shiver, but she did her best to hide it. The men around her, dressed in fine tweed suits, were slipping black hoods over their heads.

The car stopped. The men slunk down in their seats. Kate, after slipping the photograph back into her pocket, opened the door and gingerly stepped out. The sun was bright, almost blinding, and she had to shield her eyes.

She walked up the white marble steps to the public bank, finding herself amidst a throng of people as she stepped inside. Kate pushed past suits and men in fedoras, feeling uncomfortable in her white blouse and dark grey pants. A few people gave her odd looks – she was a woman. Why wasn't she wearing a dress?

Kate had just stepped in to line behind a tall, dark-haired man when a gunshot sounded from the entrance of the bank. Instinctively, she fell to the ground, as did the man behind her. He landed beside her, and she couldn't help but notice his face.

He was good-looking, to be sure, but that wasn't what drew her to him. It was the haunted look in his eyes, the way he reminded her of herself.

The bank robbers came in, firing into the ceiling and yelling at them to stay down. Kate barely heard them. She knew their words, she had witnessed it all before.

Then the band began to move towards the counter, and she knew they would inevitably move towards the safe. It was time for her to play her part.

Kate turned to the man beside her. "There's a gun in my pants," she whispered. His eyes flickered and focused on her, though he didn't move or attract any attention.

"What?" he mouthed, looking confused. Kate paused to glance at the robbers. But, like their plan, they weren't paying any attention to her.

"There's a gun in my pants. Take it and give it to me," she whispered. The stranger hesitated a moment before reaching down the back of her pants. Kate's skin tingled at the contact.

He held on to it, placing it underneath his tweed suit. Kate's heart lurched. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to give it to her. Then the man in charge was supposed to beat her to scare the others. She'd get her fair share of the cash and walk out early.

The man beside her lifted the gun up and pointed it at the bank robbers. But they were expecting it. Two quick shots rang out. The noise echoed in Kate's ears. The silence around her deafened.

Her world seemed to slow and stop. An innocent man was gone. It was her fault. Her hands, previously so still, trembled.

Then the man groaned. He wasn't dead. Blood was spilling from his side and Kate suddenly found herself pressing her hands against his wounds, trying to do anything to stop the bleeding.

Someone was screaming. Take him to the hospital. Take him to the hospital! Kate recognized it as her voice.

Her throat hurt from yelling. Her hands, sticky with blood, pressed against him. He wasn't going to die. He couldn't. It couldn't be her fault.

The robbers were gone with their money. They weren't going to wait. People were running from the bank, spilling out onto the street like ants.

The man groaned again. He would be okay. "Go with them," he urged her. Both of them knew that she would get in trouble. She would have to explain why she had a gun in the first place.

For some inexplicable reason – which Kate later attributed to her guilt – she couldn't leave. Her legs were heavy. She couldn't run.

"I won't leave without you." Her words sounded empty and hollow and she hated herself for it. _Detested_ herself for it.

She wanted to run and hide, but that was what she did every time. This time it seemed impossible.

Police began to swarm around the building, slowly making their way in. Someone yelled for a medic. A woman came rushing in, brushing Kate aside. The brunette could only sit there as someone else tended to him.

Her vision swam. The noise was too much. The blood was too much. Her hands trembled. _Not my real father_. Memories from the past flooded her mind.

Kate blacked out.

A few hours later, Kate found herself sitting on a blue hospital chair, being interviewed by a handsome young man with dark brown eyes. Agent Carlyle. His nametag was ostentatious. She decided that she didn't like him.

She was in the same room as the man who had been shot. He was resting in the hospital bed, awake but drowsy as he watched their interview.

"Are you related to Mr. Jack Shephard?" he was asking, his delicately pointed brows knitted as he scribbled things down on his police pad.

She shook her head. Kate wanted to open her mouth to explain, but she knew no words would come out. So she ducked her head and hid her green eyes, knowing they might give everything away.

Usually they were so calm and controlled. But now, for a reason she couldn't identify, everything she had previously counted on in her life was turning on itself.

She studied the man's face. It was so handsome and so familiar that she had to stop and wonder if it had really been a coincidence that they had been at the same bank. Had they known each other before? Had they met somewhere else?

"Are you two romantically involved?" asked the police officer, poising his pen just above the paper.

Kate's mouth twitched at the question. She had been involved with plenty of men lately, but none of it was really romantic. Just physically and only fulfilling in one manner.

"Miss Austen?" prodded Agent Carlyle.

Kate turned her attention back to him. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jack nestle deeper into the bed. "No, we're not."

"Do you know where the gun came from?" he asked, his voice becoming harder as he scrutinized her. Did he suspect it was all part of an elaborate set-up?

Her throat dried up. _Yes, it's mine_. But she couldn't say that. They'd lock her up – and worse, they'd use her to find her partners in crime. Maybe she could cut a deal.

"It was mine," croaked Shephard from the bed. He must have been listening. Kate turned her head, surprised, before remembering that she had to act like she thought it had been his all along. "I had seen someone following me for the past while, and I wanted to be prepared."

After making a few more notes and asking a few more questions, the agent left. He shut the door behind him with a gentle click, and Kate immediately turned to Shephard.

"Why did you say that? They won't believe your story!" she asked, the words rushing out of her.

"They will for the time being," said the man confidently. "Anyways, you were there for me, so I wanted to be there for you."

Kate walked over to the bed and frowned. "That isn't how the world works, though. People don't actually do things like that."

He smiled. "Maybe that isn't how it works, but that doesn't mean it isn't how it's supposed to work."

She was taken aback by his words. Kate had never known someone so honest and caring before. "No one else thinks like you do," she whispered.

He looked down at his hand, where she was absentmindedly tracing the contours with her slender fingers. Kate noticed and quickly retracted her hand.

Jack laughed weakly. "With us but not one of us, right?" he asked. Kate looked at him in confusion, trying to resist the urge to push her skin against his again.

"It's my fault you got shot…" she trailed off, raising her gaze and looking at the white wall across from her. She wouldn't let her eyes betray her again.

He frowned. "How?"

Kate was about to explain when he stopped her. "Never mind," he whispered. "I don't want to know. If I know I might tell them. I don't want to get you in trouble."

"Can I just… test something?" she asked softly.

Jack nodded. Kate bent down and pressed her forehead against his, this time a willing contact of skin. It was like her body was drawn to his. It was like her body was _designed_ for his.

But her body was also designed to run.

So Kate moved away and left, going as fast as she can without attracting attention. She cleared the hospital doors and went down the street. She would take a car and find a new city. She would find a new job.

As she walked down the street, the sun sinking behind her, Kate couldn't help but smile. Maybe she was a runaway. Maybe she wasn't a good person. Maybe she could never _be_ a good person.

But there were people in the world who could be. _That were_.

Kate took the picture out of her pocket and ripped it up, letting the pieces fall to ground all around her.

_Thank you, Jack Shephard._


	6. SEATTLE, 1956

**SEATTLE, 1956**

They had known each other for about a year. It felt like much longer. It felt like much less.

She had been alone, desolate and broken on the stadium steps. He had been confused, angry, and bitter. Lost. A man in a jogging suit. Strange, considering how he wasn't the one born to run.

I'm Jack. Those were the only words that had escaped his lips. They had slipped into the night, where even the smallest of silences was deafening.

Her eyes were red. I'm Kate. He had smiled at her. She hadn't smiled back. Her lips had been tight and her composure even tighter. It was then that he had decided to be her friend. To be her shoulder.

From taking her to coffee shops all to way to museum exhibitions, Jack had tried hard to fit the role of her friend and shoulder. There were times when he felt like maybe they should be more.

But that wasn't possible. From the very beginning, Jack had sworn to be her friend for as long as he could. There was a fine line to weave around. He always had to stop himself before he fell into something so dangerous where taking a step back was no longer possible.

He wondered if she ever wanted more. Her shoulders were always so tight, but her posture had changed. Kate no longer flinched away from his touch. She no longer delivered her words with careful precision.

Then something had stepped in the way of Jack's vow. His duty to his country. A letter had arrived in the mail.

Dear Jack Shephard, it began. From there, only one word had managed to penetrate the wall that confined his mind.

Vietnam.

Sincerely, the Government of the United States of America.

It had also contained a nice little note stating how he had to show up for examination unless he wished to be found in contempt – and subsequently a prison cell.

His physical had been perfect. Brilliant. Utterly amazing.

He was supposed to leave tomorrow.

Jack looked up from the cereal he had poured himself. His glass of orange juice was half-empty, leaving small trails of pulp all over to the top half of the glass.

It was always breakfast for dinner. That was just his standard operating procedure. Cereal and orange juice.

He was dressed in jeans and a sloppy t-shirt. His suitcases were packed and standing by the door. All that was left was one last sleep in his own bed.

The doorbell rang.

Jack stood up so quickly that he knocked his chair over. Cursing under his breath, he made his way over to the door of his houseboat.

It was, after all, now the trend for the wealthy on the decline to live on houseboats floating at the Seattle seaside. It gave Jack the feeling of security – he was on an island and no one could hurt him.

Except for her.

Jack opened the door. She was standing there, wearing a white blouse and faded jeans. Her green eyes, so beautiful, took in his messy appearance.

"What happened to your hair?" It was all she managed to ask as she ran her hand along the fine brown bristles.

"I thought you wanted it short," he said in a hoarse whisper, his words teasing but weak.

Kate stepped in to the houseboat around him. It was so clean and empty-feeling – save for the orange juice and cereal. "I knew you were leaving, but… it never felt so real before, Jack."

The way she said his name made him tingle inside. He turned to stand behind her, his arm resting gently on hers. "It never felt so real to me either."

"When will you be back?" Jack recognized her voice as she switched into her guarded, wary mode.

He shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. But her green eyes saw right through him. Jack ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know, Kate. I don't know."

Her name felt beautiful on his tongue and he wanted to keep on saying it forever. Jack could picture himself in the trenches, just whispering it over and over again.

Kate.

He had learned that her mother was sick and that the doctors were struggling. He had wanted to help, but she hadn't let him. There were so many times when he thought he had broken into her shell, but there was always something that reminded him how endlessly vast she was.

Maybe it was her eyes.

"Jack…" She was tugging on his hand, pulling him towards the stairs. They sat on the bottom step together, their shoulders brushing and their fingers intertwined.

He turned to look at her and she let him, turning her face towards his. He had caught her vulnerable, her eyes wide and willing to let him in.

"I will come back for you. I promise," he murmured, brushing a strand of brown hair away from her eyes.

She blinked and he wondered if she was trying not to cry. Kate never cried. Not in front of him. He traced the outline of her cheekbone with his thumb.

"It's a promise, Kate," he murmured, eyes earnest. "That means I'll keep it. I told you I'd always be your friend. I meant it then and I mean it now."

Then her lips were on his and Jack stopped being able to breath.

When the shock faded, he began to kiss back, slowly at first. Her hands were on his back and his neck, pulling him into her, and Jack responded eagerly.

Drops of wetness began to dot his cheeks and he realized that she was crying. He swept a hand over her cheek, feeling her shiver and respond to his touch.

Jack pulled them up, moving his hands down to her lower back and pulling her against him.

She kissed him passionately; desperately. As they clung to each other, desperate to become one entity, Jack became aware that he was crying too.

He led her upstairs, never breaking the lip contact that was sending volts through him. They tumbled through his door and on to the bed, and Jack held her down with his mouth as he fumbled with her belt.

Kate slid his shirt off and got to work on his jeans as he planted a trail of kisses all down her neck, his hands working at the buttons of her blouse.

It seemed like forever, but in what was probably only a few seconds, Jack was pushing into her. Their tears mingled and he found himself crying out her name in desperation to keep both of them there forever.

Each second felt like a lifetime. Jack had stop thinking and left everything to his heart, so full of love, and his body. This was everything he had dreamed of and more. Every second he had spent with Kate had been building up to this one powerful climax.

When it was done he pressed his forehead against hers. Words escaped him. He wanted to spend forever there in that bed with her, but he had to leave tomorrow.

"You should go…" he whispered, though not unkindly as he stroked her face.

Kate was still crying softly. "I don't want to lose you," she murmured. "I just found you."

Jack sighed and moved away, rolling over in the sheets. Behind him, the sheets rustled as Kate stood up and collected her clothes.

She was at the door to his room when she stopped and turned back towards him. "You'll come back, right?"

A smile graced his lips, though he knew she couldn't see it. "I promised," Jack reminded her.

Then Kate was gone and Jack was left with the three words that the both of them needed to hear him say more than anything.

_I love you_.

Maybe one day he would get a chance to tell her.


	7. CHARLOTTETOWN, 1864

**CHARLOTTETOWN, 1864**

It was warm for a September day, though brisk breezes swept across the small island province. The air was thick with the sound of ringing bells and soft carnival music. People walked around in small groups, making up a larger single throng, chattering animatedly as they carried cones of ice cream.

The circus had come to Charlottetown. The ironic part, however, was that it wasn't the only thing to come to Charlottetown. A boat was coming in slowly, with well-dressed delegates perched at its railings.

It was just that no one cared. Instead, all the populace really seemed interested in was the circus.

Almost all the populace.

She ran through the crowds, her hands tucked under her jacket. The brown-haired woman, determined-looking with wild green eyes, shouldered her way past couples and families as she stole through the circus.

All of the voices around her blended into one thick mixture of something she had never known – the sound of real family. The only people she had ever considered her family had turned their backs on her.

I was just trying to protect you. The words ran through her head endless times. She had never been more sure about anything in her life. But her mother still hadn't believed her.

What did you do?

Her words had stung like a backhand across the face. Kate winced at the thought of her mother's frightened tone. She had wanted to reply. How could you do this to me, Mom? But she couldn't. She hadn't been able to force the words through her lips.

Her hands, pressed tightly against the cold metal, strained against their cuffs. But they were too strong and knew that in a couple days, she would have ring of chafed flesh around her wrists.

She needed something to undo them. Something like a firing pin or a pen.

Then she saw him, a silver fountain pen sticking out of his shirt pocket like a silver lining. Kate, her hands barely concealed by her black jacket, threw herself forward.

With the well-practiced innocence of a refined criminal, she stumbled into him and knocked them both off balance. While he was struggling to catch himself, she snuck her hands out and whipped the pen right out of his chest pocket. The whole thing was a blur of movement and noise and neither of them were sure exactly what had just transpired.

The man, tall and sturdy with slicked back brown hair, caught her by the elbows and steadied her. Kate looked up and met his eyes. They only kept eye contact for a moment, but it was enough to show her that he had kind eyes.

"Sorry!" she gasped, her voice well-practiced. She kept her eyes on his forehead, his cheeks, his chin – anything but his eyes.

She might have been a criminal, she might have been _hardened_, but she was far from a bad person. Or at least, that was what she kept telling herself.

Her mother might have disagreed.

His hands were firm on her shoulders. "Are you alright?" he asked. His words took Kate by surprise. From one look at him, she had expected a deeper voice. But his was soft and alluring.

She nodded hastily. "I'm fine," Kate assured him, trying to pull away. He let her go, but as she ran, she could feel his eyes on her back as he watched her go.

Once far away from him, she ducked into the shadows of one of the venues set up in the circus and set to work removing the handcuffs. It was rough on her wrists, but after some tinkering, Kate managed to release their hold on her.

There was a fine pink line around her wrists, but apart from that, it didn't hurt. She dropped the handcuffs into the shadows and slipped the pen into her pocket. It wasn't worth much, but she could pawn it for a meal.

Satisfied and radiating confidence from a job well done, Kate slipped back into the crowd and decided to head for the wharf. It was the closest, and from there it would be easy to get back into the main city without being lost in the circus-drawn crowds.

With a spring in her step, she began to make her way through the crowd. Kate could see the ocean in the distance. The tang of salt, which tasted of freedom, was heavy in her mouth as she parted her lips to give a genuine smile.

As she arrived at the wharf, she noticed that the boat containing the delegates was anchored offshore. There was a rowboat going back and forth to transport these pompous old men to the Charlottetown Conference.

She watched as one of the men – Kate didn't know his name nor did she particularly care – stood up and unsteadily dismounted from the rowboat as it reached the dock.

He had taken about three steps onto the mainland before he collapsed, face red and gasping for air. Kate froze. So did everyone around her. What was happening? Was he okay? Clearly not. Was there a doctor?

Then, shouldering his way through the crowd, came the man that Kate had stolen the pen from. He kneeled down beside the collapsed delegate with no thought for his own nice clothing.

She saw him check his pocket and then freeze. The man's eyes widened. Kate felt around inside her own jacket pocket. _The pen_.

"I need a pen!" he yelled to the crowd. "I'm a doctor. This man's lung has collapsed. I need a pen or any sharp instrument!"

No one came forward. Kate's grip around the pen tightened. She could run right now. But that man might not live. If that doctor didn't find a pen…

It would be her fault.

She wasn't like her real father. She wasn't like what her mother said. Though every fibre of her being itched to run, she didn't.

"I have one!" Kate called as she ran towards the doctor. His eyes clouded with relief as he recognized her and took the pen from her outstretched hand.

Kneeling on the other side of the gasping man, Kate watched as the doctor broke the pen apart so that the ink was removed at the pen was simply a hollow cylinder with a pointed top.

Then he smashed it as hard as he could into the man's chest.

The man roared in pain. The doctor just turned and looked at Kate. "Help me flip him over," he instructed, grasping the man's left side.

Kate nodded soundlessly and helped to flip him over. The doctor held up the man by his shoulders and his gasping began to slow.

"We need to let the air leave his chest so the pressure equalizes and his lung can re-inflate," the doctor told her, his voice clipped and clinical. She met his eyes, however, and discovered that they were still warm.

"Will he be okay?" Kate asked worriedly, tearing away her gaze from those soft brown eyes and back to the collapsed delegate. Sitting there with this doctor felt… almost calm.

His tone was still tight and formal. "Most people recover fully from spontaneous pneumothorax."

People were staring to come over to them now. The doctor reluctantly handed off his patient, but not before getting one last look at the pen.

His eyes widened in understanding and his gaze slid over to Kate. He stood up slowly, like a cougar about to pounce.

Kate took a step back. He took a step forward.

She turned and ran. Kate pushed her way through the crowds, trying to escape. _Shit. Shit. Shit_.

But he was faster. The man caught her arm and she turned, thrashing around. "Let me go!" she hissed, but he held her firmly.

"Why'd you take it?" His tone was harsh and firm as he held her. She didn't meet his eyes; Kate just kept staring down at his neatly shined shoes.

She lifted her hands. She felt his shirt rustle as he moved to look at them and felt sure that he had noticed the raw pink lines.

"What's to stop me from hauling you down to the station and turning you in right now?" he yelled, his anger building. Kate winced. How could someone so calm just turn so angry?

She remembered the way he had acted when she had helped him. The way it had felt, as if they had been designed to make a perfect and effective team.

But she had messed things up.

So the tears fell down her face and Kate knew she deserved all of the anger that this man – so strange and yet so familiar – was projecting on her.

"I didn't run," she mumbled. "I saved him. _We_ saved him."

It was a bad excuse. She knew she was at fault.

He knew it too.

But he let go. He took a step away from her. "I'm sorry." His voice was heavy and choked. Kate didn't look up, but she heard the noise as he turned and swept away into the crowd. He hadn't apologized for grabbing her like that. He hadn't apologized for accusing her. He was apologizing for the feeling that had existed but just could never work. He was sorry that the feeling of working perfectly in harmony couldn't come back.

He was sorry for showing both of them what they could never have.

She kept on crying.


	8. SEOUL, 1961

**SEOUL, 1961**

The cold metal is pressed against his temple. He can feel his blood pulse past. It's all rushing to his head. But his eyes are calm and collected. His mouth is set in a grim line. He's done all this before.

His finger comes down firmly on the trigger. He wants to panic and feel that moment of fear but there isn't any moment because it's all happening too fast. He hears a click and then suddenly the adrenaline fades, only to be replaced by relief.

He lowers it from his head and breathes a gentle sigh as he pushes it across the table. He hears firm hands grasp it and watch as the bear-like figure places it up against his own temple. Hazel eyes meet pale blue as the barrel spins.

The trigger is pulled, the gun ricochets, and the man across the table goes out in an undignified show of defiance. He stands up and collects his money. Another victory. He takes a step away from the table to down a glass of whiskey.

As his feet graze the floor, he feels his mind going far back the long forced marches where men smelled of sweat and fear. But when the alcohol is in his system, his head clears and everything begins to fade back to normal as his pulse slows.

Then everything reverts.

The man looked up, his hazel eyes bloodshot as he downed another drink. He was in a pub, surrounded by men playing their own games of chance and lurking in the shadows.

"You're a lucky one," commented the bartender, a seedy-looking man with dark eyes and short-cut dirty blond hair.

"Thanks, Pace," he replied, sipping his drink. They all knew Pace. The Brit had watched them all come in, watched them all gamble, and watched some of them die.

It wasn't uncommon.

Still, Pace didn't know the reasons they all came to his bar to bet their life. He didn't need to know. Sometimes the men themselves weren't so sure.

It was a dirty bar on a dirty street. Jack – that was his name, even though it was so hard to remember – could have lived where he wanted. He could have lived back in the States with his remaining family. Could have found help.

But for some reason, there was something comforting about being close to the place where everything had started and ended. Comforting but scary. Even just hearing the native language of this place was enough to bring back fear-seeped memories.

It was horrible living here.

It was worse back home.

_Home_. Where was home? Sometimes he didn't think he knew. He had heard stories from other men who had spent time in the camps. Their experience had differed greatly from his.

He hadn't had the chance to gain access to the medicine or to the food. He could only remember the long, forced marches and the painful lack of food and the scent of death in the air.

Every memory was as painful as the bullet he wanted to be shot through his head.

Jack downed another drink.

The door to the bar opened. Jack ignored it. No one came in here without a reason, and everyone's reason was personal. He wouldn't have paid it any attention if Pace hadn't stiffened up. So Jack turned.

There was a woman there. At first he felt like making a scornful comment. But Jack remembered who he had used to be. He had used to be a gentleman; a _hero_. That was why he had signed up for this war in the first place.

Now he knew that heroes didn't exist. But he couldn't keep the feeling of emptiness hidden. At least when he had been living in a fantasy world, he had been _happy_.

She walked in, ignoring all of the inquiring glances. It was dark, but Jack could tell that she had long, dark hair and determined green eyes that were set in a carefully neutral expression.

The woman sat down at the table he had just vacated. The body had been moved. Pace had helpers. For some inconceivable reason, he believed that the roulette club needed to be _presentable_.

"You up for a game?" she asked, tossing her hair back. Her voice was grim and Jack wondered if she was just as broken as he was.

He sat down at the table across from her. "You might want to reload that," he offered. He was game to play.

She nodded and opened the barrel, placing in another bullet before closing it and spinning it. Then the brunette placed it to her temple. "I'm Kate."

Jack looked up in surprise. "Jack," he offered unsurely. "Why does it matter?"

Shrugging, Kate pressed her finger gently against the trigger in preparation. "If I lose and I die, then I want someone to know my name."

He laughed, but it was a hollow sound that echoed weakly in the tense air around them. "Kate, if that's the case and you lose, I doubt I'll know your name for very long anyways. After you, it's me. I can't stay lucky forever."

"No one's talking about forever," she said softly. Then, before he could reply, she squeezed the trigger. The gun clicked. _Empty_. Neither of them had time to even wince.

Kate passed it over to him. Jack held it softly in his hands. "You don't look like someone who'd want to kill themselves," he said slowly, regretting the words the second they escaped his mouth. Her hard-set mouth, her defiant eyes – she was just as irreversibly broken as he was.

"Neither do you," she replied. "You're well-dressed."

He cracked a smile despite himself. "Thanks, Kate."

"So why are you here?" she pressed. Jack winced. She had broken the unspoken rule about everyone to themselves. But for some reason, he found himself telling her.

"Prisoner of war. North Korean army camp." It was only seven words, but it was significant enough. "I used to be a doctor. Now I can't fix myself."

As he was speaking, he spun the barrel and placed the muzzle to his temple.

Kate smiled back weakly. "Everyone's fixable. _I'm_ fixable. _You're_ fixable. Did you ever consider that maybe we just don't want to be fixed?"

Jack bristled. "I don't know about you, Kate, but I wouldn't be sitting in a roulette club with a gun to my head if I thought I was _fixable_."

She shook her head and the motion was so simple that for a moment Jack almost wanted to believe her. "I know I'm fixable."

"Then why don't you do something?" He was almost yelling now, struck by the injustice of it all. If he had a chance to fix himself, then he would take it.

The corner of Kate's mouth pulled up, but her eyes stayed steely. "Because," she began wistfully. "I'm too scared."

Her words hit him hard. Jack almost lowered the gun but he found his resolve and pushed it even harder against his temple. The metal was rough on his stubble but he was used to it.

"I'm Jack. Jack Shephard. Used to be a doctor. Married then divorced. Served in the U.S. detachment sent to South Korea. Always wanted a son. Never had one." His words were clipped. That was who he used to be. Now he was detached from his old life. The war had been ten years ago. He was still living in the past.

Her beautiful green eyes widened and she leaned forward across the table. Jack, who had his finger ready to push down on the trigger, paused.

"Why are you telling me this, Jack?" she asked softly.

He smiled grimly, full of pain and suffering but also with a touch of acceptance. "Because if I die Kate, I want you to go home and fix yourself and remember me."

Kate leaned further across the table and pressed her cold fingers into his arm. Her touch was so blissful and Jack wanted to just fade into it. "It's not too late," she urged. "You can come with me. We can do this together."

He wanted _so fucking much_ to disappear inside of her words and believe them wholeheartedly. But he couldn't. He was broken and she was fixable and there was no way he was going to drag an angel down with him.

As he tested the trigger with his finger, he met her green eyes with his hazel ones and held his breath as she looked inside his very soul. There was a new certainty about this bullet. He could feel it deep within him.

Maybe it was finally his time. "Go home, Kate."

"No!" He closed his eyes, but he could still feel her reaching desperately across the table to rip the gun from his hand. But it was too late.

He pulled the trigger.


	9. WINNIPEG, 1982

**WINNIPEG, 1982**

The slender woman leaned back against the steel bus sign, her long brown hair cascading over her shoulders. Rubbing her hands together and blowing on them through the holes in her patched brown gloves, she shifted her legs in an effort to keep them moving.

"I did my bit," she muttered under her breath as she started down the road. "Now where are you?"

Flakes of snow were falling quickly through the air, and she could barely see down the street where the bus was supposed to be driving. There was so sign that it was even close to arriving, when it was already five minutes late.

Kate couldn't stop her teeth from chattering. She wrapped her hands even tighter around the scrap of paper in her hand – _Seven Oaks General Hospital. North Wing. Room 73 _– then pulled her arms back into her chest.

A steady stream of cold yellow light began to break through the white-filled sky and Kate looked up, her green eyes heavy with relief as the sound of the bus drew nearer. It pulled up to the stop and the doors slowly opened.

She leapt on quickly, followed by an older woman in a thick coat. Kate handed her tickets to the driver and took slow steps towards the back, her hands and cheeks burning with the sudden influx of heat.

The bus was relatively empty and so she chose a seat near the back, wrapping her arms around her and leaning against the window. It was a long ride from one end of the city to the other, especially in the snow, and she was tired. One cup of coffee in the morning wasn't enough to keep her awake.

She heard swearing next to her and she opened her eyes to see a well-muscled man with shaggy blonde hair stumbling into the pair of seats across from her. His eyes looked red, and he grinned at when he noticed her looking.

"Howdy," he greeted with a coy smile. Kate snorted and closed her eyes again, going back to her thoughts.

Today was her mother's second opinion, her consultation, the sealing of her fate, and Kate knew she had to be there to hold her mother's hand. But she couldn't muster up any sentiment about the whole thing, because Wayne would be there too.

He would be holding her mother's other hand, his eyes red and his breath reeking of alcohol. Hey Katie. A sneer. Eyebrows raised. Did you miss me? We're supposed to be a family, you know.

The words brought back memories of an even darker time. We're supposed to be a family, Katie. Don't look away from me. Don't turn away. Listen to me, goddamit. Katie, look the _fuck_ at me.

She knew what he'd be like if they were alone together in the hospital. Katie, be nice to your old man. Your mother could be dying; she'd want us to be happy together. Give Daddy a kiss.

Someone bumped into her and Kate flinched and tensed, about to strike out when she realized she was still on the bus and that somebody was just sitting next to her.

The man next to her, tall with dark hair and soft brown eyes, seemed to notice that she had flinched. "Sorry," he said, leaning back. "Are you alright?"

Kate nodded and looked back out the window, towards the white Winnipeg landscape. "Yeah, sorry, fine."

He nodded and looked as though he was going to introduce himself, but seemed to think better of it, and they fell back into silence. Kate could just see the reflection of his outline in the window, and she studied it curiously.

He had strong, handsome features, yet his face still looked kind. A part of her longed to turn around and confide in him, but an image of Sam Austen flashed through her mind and she pushed away the notion.

Just because someone looked kind didn't mean they were the right person to confide in. It always just ended up hurting too much.

All of a sudden, the bus lurched to a stop. Kate had to grab onto the back of the seat in front of her to keep from falling over.

The man beside her looked equally concerned, his fate contorting into a frown as he leaned forward. "What's going on?" he called to the front. Kate cast him a sideways glance. So he was a man of action.

"We've lost power," replied the bus driver. The rest of the people on the bus had fallen silent as he had spoken. "The engine cut out."

Kate looked back out the window. "We're stuck on one of the parkways…"

"So if we tried to walk, we might just freeze," affirmed the man beside her darkly. "It's like we're on an island, just floating here and waiting for someone to come…"

Surprised, she twisted in her seat to look at him. An image of an island flashed dimly in her memory; a flare-up of her subconscious. What had Jung theorized? _The collective human experience…_

Kate was about to reply and question him when she noticed a certain chill sinking in. "He's lost heat, too…"

The dark-eyed man frowned. "It'll get cold in here in a second," he replied. His eyes narrowed as he noticed her shivering and Kate tried desperately to stop.

"Have my jacket," he offered, and before she could say no, he was taking off his thick brown jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders.

Kate accepted it gratefully, too weak and too cold to protest. She stared unseeingly out the window again, but stopped as soon as she noticed he was watching her.

"Aren't you cold?" she asked.

"Nah. I'm made of iron," he told her through chattering teeth. Still, his smile was enough to warm her from head to toe.

Noticing something on his arm, she leaned closer to him. For a moment, being so close took to him took her breath away. But she quickly recovered as she scrutinized the marking she had seen.

"Nice tattoo," she said. He had been left wearing a grey shirt, and his handsome arms were exposed. "What does it mean in English?"

For a moment, he seemed to flinch and the colour drained from his face. But it quickly flooded back and the broken look in his eyes passed as he cracked a grin. "It stands for 'Hardcore Spinal Surgeon', actually."

"Hardcore, huh?" she asked idly, before the meaning of his words hit her and she sat bolt-upright.

"Yeah, that's me…" he trailed off as he noticed her stiff posture and wide eyes. "Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah, fine," she mumbled. "It's just…"

"It's just what?" he prodded, and his soft, insistent voice made her look up and meet his gaze with her own. A tremor ran through her as she realized his hand was on her shoulder.

"You said you were a spinal surgeon and my mom, she needs one and she's having another opinion today but, I don't know, he's not a specialist and if you could like maybe, do something…" she murmured, instinctively drawing closer to him for comfort.

He smiled. "Sure, I can take a look," he replied, leaning down closer to her face.

Their noses were almost brushing. Kate wanted to lean up and press her lips against his, imagining his lips to be soft and sweet. It felt as though her heart had stopped beating for a moment. His hazel eyes bored into hers, conveying more emotions than she had thought possible.

He pulled away. "Here's my business card," he offered her, drawing one out of his pocket.

_Jack Shephard, spinal surgeon._

"Jack," she echoed his name as to burn it into her subconscious – but it was as if it was already firmly imprinted there.

"Hey, we're moving!" A gleeful shout made them both turn their heads. The bus had started to pick up again, and the snow had cleared. Soon they were hurtling – well, not crawling – down the road.

"This is my stop," said Kate after five minutes of staring at his card and wondering why he felt so familiar.

Jack smiled. "I'll see you later then. Don't hesitate to give me a call…"

"Kate," she informed him, right before she slid out the doors and exited the bus.

It was only after she entered the hospital that she realized she was still wearing his jacket.


	10. QUEENSTON, 1812

**QUEENSTON, 1812**

Footsteps thumped on the dirt, rustling the grass. He was among them, another ant following in the line. Muskets were raised and yells were lanced around the battlefield. Ready, aim, fire. Recoil. Reload. Shoot the redcoats. For freedom!

It was a cry that was taken up by all the men. He found himself repeating it, voice strong and full of conviction. For freedom! His eyes were wide and he slipped and ducked, a musket ball whistling by his head.

Cheering suddenly erupted from the men beside him. Brock is down! Brock is down! He cast his glance forward, yet the red-wearing soldiers opposing them did not retreat.

He leapt forward, his musket raised. Another cry. Then, as he pulled the gun to his eye and prepared to shoot, a sudden pain ripped his side.

He stumbled back, unprepared for the influx of red that threatened to blind his vision. His abdomen felt like something heavy and bluntly had pierced it. He dropped his gun and placed his hands on his wound, feeling stickiness coat his fingers.

Collapsing to the ground, he pulled at the grass with dirty fingers, aware that his jacket was becoming increasingly damp and sticking to his flushed skin.

He pulled himself over, trying to find some respite from the sounds of musketfire and the cries of freedom. His vision swam a deep red. His eyes, heavy-lidded, finally closed and he let himself drift away.

xxx.

Bright lights invaded his vision. He groaned, trying to black them out. All he wanted to do was sleep. A noise from beside him caught his attention – there was a rustling sound. He reached out for it, unaware if he was actually moving his arms, and emitted a soft groan.

Muted voices. He's awake. He shifted his head, trying to see who had spoken but there was nothing there. He tried to open his eyes, but they were firmly closed. He groaned again and murmured something under his breath. Had he said 'for freedom'? He couldn't tell.

Something gentle was touching his shoulder. _An angel_. It had to be. He had died and he was now in heaven. He opened his eyes once more and the white light confirmed it. He had died and gone to a better place.

He grunted and shifted his head to look at what was touching him. He saw a soft, pale, hand. An angel's hand, creamy and delicate. He kissed it gently, only to be surprised when it was suddenly yanked away.

The sudden movement caused him to jerk back. As soon as he had shifted his torso, the pain came flooding back and he nearly cried out, but managed to keep it to a soft groan. If he was in heaven, why did it still hurt?

He looked up and found himself staring into beautiful emerald eyes. They were so cold and frigid – an angel's critical gaze, he imaged. Something so beautiful could never look on a mere human with respect.

He took in the face – a defiant chin, beautiful features, and long curly brown hair. She was studying him intently, he realized with a start.

Looking her over once again, he took in the middle-class clothes and the bloody bandages on the table behind her. Realization dawned on him. "Where am I?" he asked.

"Queenston," she replied brusquely. "We found you after the battle and brought you here. It's my home – I'm taking care of you."

He frowned. "Just you?"

"No," she began, taking a step back and sitting on the chair by the couch where he was resting. "I live with my husband, Tom."

_Shit_. His wife? Did she think he was dead? "Juliet," he croaked weakly.

"Look," she said awkwardly. "I don't really know you at all, and – our countries are at war right now. I'm just here to take care of you, alright?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

Then he laid his head back down on the pillow. He meant to ask her more about what had happened, but his lids closed on their own accord and he drifted off into a deep slumber.

xxx.

When he woke up, the pain was back. It wasn't as bad as it had been before, but he still felt it like a hole in his side. After assessing his surroundings – like a good soldier and doctor – he checked to see if she was there.

She was.

"You've been out for a day," she whispered, and he wondered if the smile he saw playing on the corner of her lips was real.

He was about to reply when the pain throbbed and he took a sharp intake of breath.

"Let me change your bandages," she said, getting up from her chair and taking off the blanket that covered him.

He rested his head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling, feeling her soft fingers lightly trace his abdomen as she pulled at the sticky linen. He winced as she removed it before sighing as she tied more on and renewed the pressure.

"Thanks," he murmured. Then – "What's your name?"

"Kate," she replied with a smile. "What's yours, American?"

He scoffed. "Jack Shephard. Are you a doctor or a nurse, or do you just take care of wounded soldiers a lot?"

"Tom – my husband, sorry if I already, yeah… uh, he's a doctor, so I've picked up some stuff from him over the years," he replied.

"So if he's a doctor, why are you taking care of me?" He had meant it to be a joke, but her eyes had flashed with pain as she looked away.

"He's busy a lot," she mumbled, staring out the window. Jack followed her gaze, seeing other houses nearby and revelling at the bright blue sky.

"Hard to believe it's almost winter," he commented.

Kate seemed glad to change the subject. "Yeah… Anyways, I know you just slept for a day, but you should probably get some more rest. I have to go do the laundry now anyways."

He chuckled at the image of her doing the laundry – she seemed far too rebellious. Jack watched her as she left the room, taking in the natural way her curls swung down across her back. Then, when she was gone, he drifted back into slumber.

xxx.

"How are you feeling?" she asked. Jack had just woken up, and she was sitting by his side with a bowl of something-or-other in her lap.

"Like I just got shot," he replied sarcastically, struggling to sit up. She obviously saw the pain he was dealing with, since her eyes widened.

"I made you something," Kate offered shyly. "Soup and crackers. I eat it whenever I'm not feeling too good. Here."

She offered him the bowl and spoon and he took it, seeing that the crackers were arranged on the side of the dish. Jack gulped it down eagerly, enjoying the taste of food other than the water and bland meat she had previously provided.

"Thanks," he said with a smile. She smiled back and their eyes met. For a moment, neither party could look away. Then Kate looked down with a sigh.

When she looked back up, her eyes were weary. "Jack, there's something you need to know…"

"What?" he asked, scraping his spoon along the bottom of the dish to pick up the rest of the soup.

"In the battle you were in… Isaac Brock died. One of the best generals in the war. The town knows I'm taking care of you… they're trying to decide what to do with you," she said slowly.

Jack frowned. "So you think they're going to be harsh on me because Isaac Brock died? Even though – wait, who won the battle?" He had thought because they had been Brock go down, their side had won, but…

"We won. Well, the British Empire did. I don't know if I'm British or Canadian." Kate seemed to be talking to herself when she mumbled the last part. "But yes, I do think that. Some of the town council want to come here and meet you."

Jack tried to smile and she tried to return it, but he could see that her heart wasn't into it. "It'll be okay," he murmured.

Kate shook her head. "I'm scared, Jack. I don't want them to hurt you."

Genuinely touched by her concern, he smiled, this time a real one as he looked into her beautiful green eyes. Jack offered his hand to her, fingers outstretched.

"It'll be okay, Kate. I have your back. I just need to know – do you have mine?" His eyes were pleading as he offered her all he could possibly give – yet he knew there was nothing he wouldn't let her take.

Kate smiled and took his hand, sending an electric shock coursing through his body. "Yeah, Jack. I have your back."

* * *

_Alright! :) seeing as it's chapter ten, i figured i'd give you all an author's note or something, for a couple of reasons._

_oo1. well, first off, i'm going on vacation for about a week so, so i won't be able to update during that time - but i will be able to come up with all kinds of jatey scenarios for future chapters (and more jex?)._

_oo2. i reply personally to all my reviews but i don't get a chance to do that for story alerts, so i wanted to thank everyone who added this to their story alerts. it means a lot to me, guys._

_oo3. one tenth of the way through this fic. man, a hundred is a really high number, and i hope i can do it. still, it feels good knowing i've made some progress._

_oh, and i know i generally don't explain my settings, but yeah. queenston is a town in what was lower canada and is now ontario. this is the war of 1812. i figure you guys can figure out the rest._

_thanks for everyone's support :)_

_leave a review! _


	11. COUNTY KILDARE, 1740

**COUNTY KILDARE, 1740**

The frost was killing everything. It might have been bearable, she reflected, if it had perhaps come at a better time. But it had arrived precisely at the correct time to destroy their crops and render all of their potatoes inedible.

She shut her eyes and rolled onto her side, ignoring the scratchiness of the cot as the hemp poked into her side. Pulling the rough, wool blanket up to her chin, she tried to block out the sounds of the hounds baying in the yard.

Her mother would come into the room at any time to wake her up and tell her to go check on the potatoes. Both of them knew, however, exactly what she would find. Cold, hard lumps that were impossible to eat.

He stomach rumbled and the dogs yapped even louder. The hounds, Edward and Tom, were the only real memories she had left of her father. He had died when she was young, leaving just her and her mother to farm alone.

It was the principal reason why she wasn't married yet. Her mother was frail and sickly, and without her daughter by her side, she wouldn't make it through the winters. Her daughter wasn't complaining – she had never particularly wanted to be married off and become a farmer's wife.

"Katherine!" Her mother's voice, weak but insistant, let her know that it was time to wake up. It was still dark outside, but life started early for them on the farm, and Kate wearily rolled out of bed, ready to begin the day.

"Can you go check on the potatoes?" It was the same words that she spoke every morning of every day. Kate nodded, more out of habit than anything else. They both knew that the potatoes wouldn't be edible.

She walked into the other room of the two-roomed cabin, pulling brown cloth clothing over her head. Her mother was sitting in her, staring straight ahead as if she could see something that Kate couldn't.

"How are you feeling today?" Kate asked, checking her mother up and down. Her hands were mottled and rigid, and her face was sunken and pale.

"Hungry." It was a feeble attempt at humour, but Kate graced her mother with a – admittedly forced – smile. She placed her hand over her mother's gently.

"Maybe I'll find something today," Kate stated, knowing that she wouldn't. Her optimistic tone of voice didn't seem to deceive her mother, either, and she kept staring at the wall as if she could see past it.

"I'll be in soon to make you soup," she offered before turning away and exiting the farmhouse. Soup made out of what, water? _If it's all we have left, then yes._

Before she went out to the fields, she checked on Edward and Tom, who were tied up in a small, kennel-like area outside. The whole thing stunk of stale urine and dirt, and she quickly untied the two beagles, knowing they would come back.

"Shush, you," she murmured to Tom as she fiddled with his colour. The dog yapped, anxious to be free and join Edward, who was roaming the fields. "Hold on, boy."

When both dogs were free, Kate picked up her basket and made the long walk out the potato fields. Though she could see other farmhouses, which were just dark spots on the horizon, no one but them used this land.

Standing at the top of the rise, she looked down on the acre of sowed fields, the potato plants crippled by the frost. Every March, she and some of the boys from the nearby town of Allen would sow the fields and plant the potatoes.

Now, in July, it was time to pick the early ones. Though the frost was over and sun warmed the land, the leafy green shoots had been turned black by the frost, and no rain had fallen in weeks.

It was like fate to be cruel. A great frost, followed by a terrible drought.

Kate squatted close to the ground and pulled out a potato shoot. Her stomach rumbled as she examined the tubers. They were misshapen and hard; completely inedible.

She sighed and put it back down, about to return to the farmhouse and feed the dogs when she heard a voice.

"Hey, you over there!" It had been her mother's brilliant idea to sow their potatoes close to the road. It wasn't a major road, just a small dirt path, and it was still unusual for anyone to be riding down it.

Kate turned to see a well-built man dismount, well-dressed from his white ascot to his black boots. He wasn't wearing a wig, and so was displaying his short black hair.

"Hey," she greeted coolly. Kate had never had much experience with others – let alone the middle class or even rich inhabitants of Ireland – and she knew that this man didn't come from Allen.

He walked even closer to her, and she took an instinctive step back. "I'm a little lost," he admitted. "Can you help me?"

"Sure," she replied in an even tone. Kate was uneasy – she didn't trust strangers – but she was determined not to show it.

"I need to get to Allen," said the man, running a weather hand through his stubble. His eyes, brown and kind, looked tired, as if he had witnessed a lifetime.

"You've passed it," she mumbled. "It's that way."

"Right…" he sighed. The man looked back towards his horse and the direction he had just come, but made no move to leave.

"So why are you wandering this way?" She met his gaze for a moment before dropping it and looking down at the blackened shoots by her feet.

He was silent, and Kate looked back up in confusion. There was something about him that seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn't identify it. "I don't know…" he said after awhile, and she was struck by how vulnerable his voice sounded. "I guess I was just supposed to wander this way."

She frowned, scrunching up her nose in one of her habitual Kate-like gestures. "Supposed to?" she asked, unable to hide the scorn that tinged her remark.

"Yeah," he replied. "Don't you believe in things that are supposed to be?"

He looked well-fed and unaffected by the famine. Full of anger at the injustice of it all, Kate squatted down and ripped out a hardened black lump from the ground. "Do you see this? Is this how it's supposed to be?"

The man held her gaze steadily and Kate had to tear hers away from his deep brown eyes. "Never mind," she mumbled under her breath, turning to go.

"Hold on." Despite herself, Kate turned around at the sound of his voice, brushing brown hair away from her eyes. She shifted anxiously, wanting to leave but at the same time wanting to stay.

"I used to be someone who didn't believe in reasons," he said, running a hand through his hair and letting out an ironic chuckle that Kate could imagine coming to characterise him. "But things change."

"Why are you telling me this?" she frowned.

He shrugged. "Because sometimes you need to stop blaming yourself. Enough is enough."

As she stared at his face, the contours and ridges so blatantly familiar, she wondered if he was talking about her – her mother's hunger, the sickness, her loneliness – but he couldn't possibly know anything about that.

The more Kate stared at his lined face, the more she wondered if he spoke from personal experience. He had a weathered look about it, and when he turned to stare at her, it sent a slight chill coursing down her spine.

"I don't believe that," she said sombrely. "Bad things happen to good people for no reason. There is no fate. There is no '_supposed to be_'"

He raised his eyebrows but shrugged. "Whatever you say."

The man fixed his ascot and turned to leave. Before he reached his horse, however, he squatted down to the ground and pulled out another tuber. He tossed it to her and Kate caught it, a lump forming in her throat as she realized that this potato was solid, light brown, and _healthy_.

"How's that for 'supposed to be', Kate?" he asked teasingly, walking away and easily mounting his horse.

Kate just held on to the potato as if losing it meant death. It was only when he had rode away that she realized she had never introduced herself.

* * *

_A/N: I may write a vague prequel to this eventually as one of the other chapters. I've been wanting to write more historic ones since I have a lot of 1900s fics already. They're kind of the easiest to write, but I'm trying to break away from that. Still, expect to see some chapters from that era soon, but I am experimenting with older dates. The only problem with going too far in the past is that their names wouldn't be Jack and Kate anymore... :x so yeah, not sure about that._

_i also want to throw in some other characters too. if the time they spent with the people on the island was "the most important of their lives", then it stands to reason they might have (less strong) connections with the other losties as well._

_anyways, review and let me know what you think, and i'll try to throw in an update soon! :)_


	12. MADISON, 1928

**MADISON, 1928**

It was his turn to make dinner that week.

The again, who was he kidding? It was always his turn to make dinner. Jack had been making her dinner once a week for almost a year now, and while sometimes she brought bread or a salad, she never reciprocated the offer.

She never told him anything about save her name and age, and some disconnected vignettes from her past. It was enough to give him a general idea about who she was, but Jack wanted to know more.

He wanted to know her parenting, her schooling, her friends, her occupation – why she was so silent whenever he asked a question. Why she didn't want to know anything about her.

It was the oddest relationship Jack had ever been in, not that it was really a relationship beyond friends – if they could even be considered that. She came every Thursday night, always at seven o'clock, always wearing a floral or a polka-dotted dress, as was common of the decade.

Sometimes he suggested going places. To a club? No, she refused. To the theatre? She was silent and he assumed she didn't have the money, and he knew it would only offend her if he offered to pay.

They had met one late night at the hospital. Jack had been ready to go and was striding down the hallway when he had encountered her. She had looked lost, but when they had talked, she knew exactly where she was.

She just wouldn't answer his questions of why.

So Jack had invited her back over for dinner, admiring her dark brown curls and the look of defiance in her blue-green eyes – he had spent far too much time looking at them, and he was fairly confident that she didn't feel the same away about him.

To her, he assumed, he was just a place where she could get away from everything that was stressing her out and running her down. That was all. He was rock, not someone that she could confide in or even _trust_.

A beeping sound from the kitchen sent him scurrying back, abandoning the plates and forks on the dining room table. Jack opened the oven and took out the vegetarian lasagne he had made – she didn't touch meat, and he had made that mistake once more.

Never again.

_Can you see me now_, he wondered grimly as he set the dish out on the dark cherry wood table._ I bet you never thought I would be cooking for a woman._

The doorbell rang, startling Jack, who hurried to throw on his white dress shirt over the tank he had been using to cook in. He shimmied into it and quickly walked over to the door, opening it to reveal a pretty young woman in a red and white dress.

"Kate," he said breathlessly. Her name was probably the only truthful thing she had revealed to him, and he revered it, hesitant to let it slip off his tongue so easily.

She smiled, but it was weak and her eyes were clearly not into it. "Jack," she greeted in return, and just the thought of her mouth forming his name so gently made him weak at the knees.

"I made lasagne," he said vaguely, gesturing her towards the dining room. As Kate went to sit down, he went back to the kitchen and fetched their food, hoping she would like it.

Setting some on her plate and then on his, he offered her the basket of bread rolls. Kate took two hesitantly. After all the months she had been coming over for dinner, she still hesitated before taking something that was his.

"So how was your day?" he asked between forkfuls.

She shrugged, her dark hair bouncing. "It was okay, I guess," she said, in her usual vague tone that frustrated Jack so much.

"Anything interesting happen?" he asked.

Kate shrugged again. "What about your day? Anything interesting there?"

Jack sighed. Kate was always blowing off his questions, refusing to answer anything about herself. They had been seeing each other for so long that he felt as if he deserved something from her. A sentence of the truth, maybe.

"It was okay," he said, picking at the food with his fork and twirling a strand of cheese around its spines. He wasn't feeling so hungry anymore.

Kate, on the other hand, was steadfastly devouring her food. She was so thin that sometimes Jack wondered if coming over to his house was the only time she could eat properly. On one hand, the idea made him feel good, but on the other, he felt used by her.

"So tell me about yourself." His voice was casual, as if he was just making dinner conversation, but Kate looked up, startled.

She didn't reply, and Jack decided to skip straight to the point. "Yourself, Kate. I don't know anything about you, yet you're always over here. I think I deserve a little honesty, Kate. So tell me about yourself."

"Jack, I can't." Her eyes were pleading, though she kept her chin tilted up and her grasp on her fork was firm.

"Tell me about yourself!" He was yelling now. It didn't take very much to get him angry. One simply disagreement and his mouth was open wide, angrily dishing out words.

She shook her head, and her lower lip wobbled slightly.

"Where were you born?" he asked calmly.

Kate shook her head again, doing anything to avoid his gaze.

"Where were you born?" His voice had risen again, and he could tell that Kate was doing her best not to cry. He wanted to see her cry. He wanted to see her express any other emotion than cool indifference.

"Iowa," she managed to say, choked by fear. "Iowa, Jack."

"And your parents?" There was so much that he should have learned the first time that they met. "Your parents, Kate!"

"I can't… I can't…" she murmured, putting down her fork.

Kate stood up hurriedly and pushed her chair in, nearly stumbling. Jack watched, burning with rage, as she stood outside the hallway. Then, without a second glance – which was more insulting than anything else – she started to leave.

He leapt up, knocking over his plate as he did so. The imported china shattered on the ground, and the lasagne spattered over the hardwood floor. Jack didn't care.

He caught her by the arm and pulled her back towards him. "Why won't you tell me anything?" he asked harshly, trying to make her cry. If she cried, then he would now that she at least cared about something.

Jack wanted to know about her. He wanted to know everything there was about her, so he could revere her and care for her. But that couldn't start until she stopped running, and he didn't know a better way to stop her.

"Why won't you tell me?" he enunciated, every word forced and harsh. He met her green eyes with his brown ones, pleading.

Tears began to roll down her cheeks as she shook her head. "I can't, Jack."

He pushed her against the wall and pressed himself against her, his lips finding hers. She tasted salty from the tears that were streaming down her face. Jack kissed her softly at first, but stepped it up, trying to draw a response out of her.

Kate wasn't responding. She was holding shock-still underneath him, her lips refusing to work of their own accord.

He realized what he could do; what any other man might do. But he refused to take advantage of her like that, and Jack knew that right now, Kate didn't trust him. He had ruined whatever chance he had ever had of that.

So he stepped back and let her go, letting his hands, which were unusually heavy, fall to his side. Kate turned and ran, but Jack didn't pay any attention. He could taste her on his lips.

Somehow, subconsciously, he knew that she would be back next week.

He was all she had, even if it wasn't much.


	13. SURREY, 1877

**SURREY, 1877**

Brother and sister.

She had been born when he was five. At first he had hated his parents for having another child. He could remember screaming and pounding the floor. Don't you love me, dad? Aren't I enough for you? Aren't you happy with me as your son?

No.

While his father had tried desperately to assure him that he was value, Jack had been able to read the unspoken thoughts in his eyes. I'm not proud of you. You don't have what it takes, son. I want a real child. I want someone I can be proud of. I want a true son.

Except, ironically enough, this new child wasn't a son. It was a young girl, who had been born with soft brown hair and a spattering of freckles. The moment he had seen her, all of Jack's worries had slipped away. He had placed her tiny hand in his and smiled.

I'm Jack.

Then, a couple of years down the road, he got his answer.

Kate.

He had smiled and hugged her, twirling her around in the air and marvelling at the fact that such a small thing would grow up to be as big or as strong as his mother.

His mother was a strong woman. She had to be, to endure what his father did to her. Christian had always wanted a real son, but instead, he had received a girl. A useless girl. His mother didn't want a third child; she didn't even want to be around his father. She didn't have to say why: the bruises on her face easily gave it away.

He watched her learn to ride when he was ten and she was five. She was so small, and it made him wonder how small he had used to be. The horse was so big, and he was so afraid that she was going to fall off and get hurt. But she had just patted the horse's head, and the big black mare had been so gentle with her. It had been perfect.

When he was thirteen and she was eight, they would spend even more time together, curled up in the library. Jack would read aloud to her, trailing his finger to underline the words as he spoke them. He loved resting his chin on her head and placing one arm around her, feeling her heartbeat as they sat together and forgot about the rest of the world.

They had to forget. That's why they were there for each other.

Christian abused wine, among other things. For Diane, she just didn't know how to stand up to him. She was beaten daily. Her limbs were covered with black mottles, but still she carried on, bravely tilting her chin up in defiance.

Sometimes Jack could hear her crying softly in the night, while his father was busy snoring. Kate could hear it too. She would sneak into his room and crawl under the covers and he would hold her and feel her tears on his chest until both of them retreated into the comfort of sleep.

It was comfort until he turned sixteen.

Then peaceful sleep turned into nightmares. Kate, only eleven, would try to console him and hold him and tell him it was going to be alright. But she wasn't the one who was supposed to be the protector. No, it was his duty to take care of her.

To be a hero.

When she was fourteen, she received her first sun hat and dress. She was a pretty young girl now, and whenever Jack took her out in the rowboat on their estate river, he could feel the stares of the young male servants upon her.

Luckily, Kate wasn't aware of flirting and the damage she could do with her little finger. She was shy around the stablehands, accepting their compliments with innocence. Jack made sure his presence was known, as if he was daring some of the lads to try anything suspicious with her.

When she turned sixteen and still hadn't found an interest in any of the boys in the village or working at the estate, Jack began to realize that something strange was happening. Their parent's arguments had scared Kate so much that at this moment, she was incapable of loving.

All she wanted to do was run.

Jack had tried to get her interested in men. As much as he hated to admit it, they had fooled around one day in private, by the stream. He had touched her breasts and between her thighs, being no stranger to love himself at twenty-one, and had kissed her passionately.

He had placed himself on top of her and tried to get her into the moment, but Kate hadn't responded. So he had rolled off and just pulled her against his chest for a hug, the tightest hug that he could possibly imagine.

He loved Kate more than anything else. She was his sister, and he wanted to be there to protect her from the horrors of the world and from the horrors of their estate. He wanted to be the one that she relied on no matter what.

It was the reason that he wasn't married and that he still stayed home. He had to talk care of his parents, and he had to take care of Kate.

Oh, Jack could remember wishing that his parents were dead, but he had never actually wanted to see them die. His interest was medicine, and at twenty-four, he was already taking an active role in saving lives. If his parents died, it would go against everything he ever believed in.

Kate, well, she turned out differently.

Jack, twenty-seven and going strong with his stubble, strode out of the doctor's office. It was dark and late at night, but that didn't put off the aspiring surgeon. He often worked late hours for emergencies, unable to turn down anyone, no matter their social status.

It was a usual thing, but something about this night was unusual. As he felt the door slowly click into place behind him, Jack noted the smell of smoke in the air. He locked the door to the clinic hesitantly and adjusted his coat, striding down the streets of Surrey.

The more he walked, the more the knot of worry in his stomach tightened. Their estate, which was just outside of Surrey, was in the same direction that the smoke was coming from. Jack squinted up into the night sky, but if there was any visible smoke, it was hidden by the darkness.

The doctor's clinic was perhaps a half hour walk to the estate gates, but Jack made it there in half the time, increasing his pace so much that when he arrived at the ornate cast iron gates, he was panting.

As he turned the hedge corner, his stomach threatened to explode from anxiety. Jack couldn't believe what he was seeing. Smoke billowed from the whole house, which was a blazing mix of orange and red.

_Fire._

_The estate was on fire._

It was burning quickly now, and all Jack could think about was Kate. Kate, Christian, Kate, Diane, Kate, the hounds. Kate.

_How did this happen? Was it an accident?_

"Kate," he gasped slowly, falling to his knees in front of the majestic site. The air was acrid with the stench of smoke and it stung his mouth as he inhaled. "Diane."

"Mom's working late tonight."

Startled, Jack turned around to see Kate, standing with her hands tucked into the pockets of her pale yellow dress.

Her dark brown curls streamed over her shoulders, and her green eyes were full of sorrow. Her face was neutral, and more hidden than he'd ever seen her. The feeling of love swelling within him was soon quashed by a feeling of fear.

"What?"

"I said Mom's working late tonight," whispered Kate quietly. A pained look took over her face, as if she was irreplaceably torn in two.

Jack breathed a sigh of relief. "And you were out of it too. Kate, that's great. But what about Christian?"

Unlike him, she didn't refer to their parents by name, despite the fact that she was twenty-one. "He's in there," she said quietly. "Burning."

The relief in Jack's stomach changed to anxiety. "Kate," he began, his voice tight. "Did you - ? Was this… was this you?"

"I hated him, Jack," she whispered. Tears began to roll down her cheeks as she saw the pain he was feeling. Jack had never been good at keeping things from her. "I hated him for what he did to Mom."

"How could you?" asked Jack. The anger began to build up within him. She had betrayed him. "How could you do this, Kate? How could you do this? How could you?"

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He loved her more than anything else in the world. But she had betrayed him.

"I'm so sorry, Jack," she whispered quietly. The tears were still streaming down her beautiful freckled face. Then, without another word, Kate turned and ran into the shadows.

"Kate…" he said, his voice cracking. A tear began to roll down his cheek but he hastily wiped it away. "Kate…"

He loved her more than anything else in the world, but she had betrayed him. The worst part was that it was all his fault.

The most important thing in the world to him, and he hadn't been able to protect it, to stop it from turning into this. Turning away from him. He hadn't been able to love her enough.

Christian had been right.

He didn't have what it took.


End file.
